Back to the grind....

Tonight I started back to work...don't get too excited about it, it's just the nursery at church on Wednesday and Sunday nights. :) I am going to be covering in room 221 for a while until the regular worker in there finds out if she'll be able to come back to work, and if so, when. Anyway, tonight also marks the first time that I've put Braxton in the 'church' nursery (he's gone in the nursery on Tuesday mornings during mom2mom, but that's not the same). It's also the first time that he's been in the nursery at night. I dropped Brookelynne off first in her normal room with Angela and Lindsey there to take great care of her, as always, and then took Brax back to 202. Our sweet friend Julie is working in there through the rest of her pregnancy, and assured me he would be taken care of! (Don't tell anyone, but she said she takes 'extra' good care of our babies! jk) Anyway, I then headed back to 221 to start a new adventure with kids that I've never worked with before. Our age group was 2 1/2 year olds, and is quite a different experience for me because they are potty training, and talking and MUCH different!

Halfway through the night, Julie appeared at our door to tell me that Braxton had been very fussy/upset. This isn't unusual for him, since he was 4 or 5 weeks old, he's been getting fussy from 5 to 9 each night. So I went to 202 and he was sitting with Natalie, screaming bloody murder. His little face was beet red as I picked him up and tried calming him down. It took a minute or so, but I got him calm and gave him some milcon (gas medicine) and gripe water (colic medicine), as Julie went ahead and warmed a bottle for him. I left a couple of minutes later with him still calm, and walked by Brooke's room on my way back to mine. Angela came to the door and told me that she was doing great and had finished every bite of her food. I told her that they had come and gotten me because of how fussy Brax was, as tears came to my eyes. I said "I know he's not a bad kid, and they don't hate him or anything, but I hate feeling like my kid is the one that they are going to dread seeing." She and Lindsey both told me that that wasn't going to happen and Lindsey said that the fussiness was just a boy thing, that Chandler was fussy all the time, but grew out of it. I said "I know that this will pass, its just that I want them to love him and love having him because everyone loves Brookelynne and it just breaks my heart that they won't love him". Angela assured me that that won't happen and I dried it up as I went back to work.

The rest of my night was easy as half of our kids were gone when I got back. When all of our kids were gone and we cleaned up, I clocked out and went to get Brookelynne, and then Braxton. When I picked up Brax, they said he had eaten well and not fussed since then, which was nice to hear. We headed home, and so began the fussing... Brookelynne fell asleep halfway home and Brax cried on and off the whole way home. I spent most of drive on the phone, one of the ways that I drown out the fussing.

And it must have been a night for discussing how people feel about my children and how that makes me feel, because that's basically what I ended up talking about with my mom, even though it was relating to a totally different subject. We were discussing plans that we each have going on in the next couple of months and there are a few days/weekends/events that contradict each other, and we have to decide to go to one or the other. We were discussing the fact that I had just assumed that certain people loved me as much as I loved them, and that they would love my kids and want to see and be around my babies just because of how much they loved me. What has become obvious though, is that they must not have loved me as much I thought, because they don't seem to have any desire to see my kids or even me anymore, and that completely breaks my heart. And unfortunately, it makes me want to avoid events that they will be at because of how hurt I am. And I can tell you, as much as it hurts that I'm not important enough for them to make an effort to see, I am 10 times madder that they don't feel that my children are worth that, because believe me, they are so worth it.

Long story short is that tonight I feel like a lioness who's baby is being picked on and I am ready to fight for them. It may sound stupid, and some of it completely unnecessary, but I just want to make everyone see that they are wonderful, and I don't want to see anyone who doesn't think that they are. I am in a place right now that I just want to cut people and places out of my life because of the defensiveness I feel. I'm going to give it to the Lord and wait for him to give me direction. Praying that tomorrow I will wake up feeling more at peace, knowing that I don't have to fight for them, because as their creator, He knows their worth and fights for them in ways I never could.